Mr. Crawford was leaning forward in
his chair, his cigar between his fingers, his eyes very steady upon
Conniston's.
"But now," he went on, his eyes clear, but his brows drawn over them,
"we come to something different--entirely different. Out yonder in the
lap of the desert is what they call Rattlesnake Valley. It is no
valley at all, merely a great depression, a sort of natural sink. It
is twenty miles wide, forty miles long. I have found no drop of water
within thirty miles of it, no single spring, no creek. It is nothing
but sand--dry, barren, unfertile sand--five hundred square miles of
it, to look at it. And right there, in the heart of that sink, I am
going to build a town."
He spoke quietly, his voice low, no hint of boastfulness in his tone,
no hint of doubt. He spoke as a man who has studied his ground and who
knows both the difficulties which lie ahead of him and the
possibilities. Conniston, seeing only the impossibility, the madness
of such a project, looked questioningly from him to the girl. Argyl's
face was flushed, her eyes were very bright with an intense eager
interest.
"It sounds so big," Conniston hesitated, his gaze coming back to the
older man's face. "So daring, so impossible!"
"It is big! Bigger than I have even hinted at. It is daring. Of
course, I take a chance of sinking everything I have out there and
finding only failure in the end.
Pages:
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152